Only 6 matches and 26 Lakhs - average offering from ISL for Indians

Analysis By :: Sanjoy Choudhuri; Member, EAST BENGAL the REAL POWER

Today Goal com published the detailed rules of ISL Draft according to which 8 foreigners must be bought within a budget of 12.5 crore, but if a marquee is hired the ISL club can spend money in addition to 18 crore total budget.

So this means that an Indian player joining a ISL club would earn an average annual salary of 26 lakh INR and get a chance to play in 6 domestic matches on an average in a year.

Lets explain the above salary deduction-

On the best of scenarios an ISL club would try to hire a marquee player and spend additional to the budget .So, that means 7 foreigners would need to be hired for 12.5 crore which implies 1,75 crore.Well, for an annual salary of 1.75 crore for the whole season it would be interesting to see how many of the foreigners who had played last ISL , decide to return.

Now about the Indians - from the current trend it looks like each of the ISL clubs would end up spending not less that 1.5 crore for retaining 2 Indians from their previous squad. That means 15 Indians ( 17-2 ) need to be hired for 4 crore ( 18 - 12.5 -1.5). That means the average salary of the 15 Indian players would be 26 lakh (4 crore divided by 15)

Now about the matches -

If we exclude the semis and final , then 6 of the ISL clubs would only play 18 domestic matches in a year.Since each ISL club would hire 17 Indians and in each match 6 Indians would be fielded , hence the average number of matches that the Indians would get to play in ISL equals to 18 X 6 divided by 17 which is approximately 6.

As of now we have no idea whether or not there would be a Super Cup involving the ISL and I-League clubs.There is obviously large resistance from the ISL club owners to play anything apart from the ISL.The reasons are obvious- even though the players would need to be paid for the entire year , the ISL clubs can save operational costs involving hotel accomodation , travel , rent of ground , food etc if they shut down their operations at the end of ISL.

So, thats what the Indian player can expect in this year- a maximum of 18 domestic matches and an average of 6 matches.

It would be interesting to see how many Indians are willing to accept an average playing time of 6 domestic matches in the entire season.